Takeshi Kitano is one of the leading contemporary film directors from Japan. With critically acclaimed films such as HANA-BI and Zatoichi, he has earned an international reputation as a distinctive filmmaker. These two films in particular serve to illustrate how Kitano can master different film genres as well as create a specific personal style within his films. In the early 1990s Kitano made hard-core yakuza films with brutal and violent film scenes. By the end of the same decade Kitano had started to expand his repertoire as a filmmaker with his masterpiece HANA-BI from 1997. Six years later he achieved another masterpiece with the film Zatoichi. With these two films Kitano displays his ability to challenge himself by making films in totally different genres. HANA-BI is a contemporary-life film focusing on the relationship between a man and his wife in addition to the camaraderie between two men. Zatoichi represented Kitano’s first-ever samurai film – the most typically Japanese film genre, yet Kitano still succeeds in creating his own personal signature on his films so brilliantly that one can recognize his individual style of expression. These are key elements in demonstrating how Takeshi Kitano should be recognized as a true auteur.